Working and learning about other countries

We are an eTwinning School, there are 29 eTwinning Schools in the UK and 2000 across Europe.

Our school has been recognised for its approach to eTwinning in particular through:

our high quality, impactful projects with other schools in Europe

the impact those project have had on pupils

our school’s approach to eSafety

involvement in eTwinning events and training activities

the work we have done to promote our eTwinning work with others

Receiving our eTwinning School Award in Coventry

It is important that we teach our children about the world in which they live. By learning about other countries, pupils will develop their knowledge and understanding and enquiry and critical thinking skills.

To support us in the development of this area of the curriculum, staff are part of the Global Learning Programme which offers a wealth of opportunities and benefits:

Benefits for schools

Support with delivering SMSC and responding positively to the current focus on British values.

Improved pupil engagement, knowledge, skills and values.

Materials to help teachers deliver a richer curriculum.

Benefits for teachers

More engaged pupils with deeper curriculum understanding.

Improved pupil knowledge and understanding of global issues and their role within the global society.

Practical support from your nearest Expert Centre and GLP Local Advisor.

Having the opportunity to listen to, and gain an understanding of and respect for, different voices and perspectives, question viewpoints and challenge stereotypes.

eTwinning

The school have also become a part of eTwinning, where teachers from across Europe work together to create projects. Our Headteacher, Mrs Cockram, is an eTwinning Ambassador.

Our first project was creating Christmas cards and then sending them around Europe with a Seasons Greetings film. We sent Christmas cards to Finland, Greece, Poland, Croatia and Spain.

Reception have taken part in an Spring project called 'Eggy Easter'. We have been learning about how children in Poland celebrate Easter. Their traditions were really exciting and we enjoyed sharing our pictures too.

2018/19

We are working with 14 other schools located in Lincolnshire and Lebanon on Zero Waste. Together we plan to explore what Zero Waste means and how it links with the Sustainable Development goals before creating a piece of art which will be showcased at Lincoln Cathedral. Teachers and children from both countries will be working together to explore how we can make a difference.

Our Zero Waste logos

Exploring sustainable development goals

Receiving cards from Europe

Creating cards to send overseas

Writing letters to introduce ourselves to our link school in Lebanon

The children in Lebanon reading our letters

We answered the questions asked in the letters from Lebanon

We are taking part in an eTwinning Project called Cultura en una caja. We are working with pupils from Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Romania and Turkey. We started with the question: What does Cultural Heritage and identity mean to you? We used mentimeter to gather our ideas which we have now shared with others.

Below are previous year's experiences and learning:

Here is part of the message that was sent to us during our "Eggy Easter" project.

"We are from Poland a country situated in the central Europe by the Baltic sea. Let us introduce ourselves. This is our group, the group number 6 from the nursery in Olsztyn in Poland.This is our nursery in which we meet with each other from Monday to Friday. It is situated in Kortowo, a housing estate in which most departments of Warmia and Mazury University are located."

"Pisanki(Pisanky, pysanky) are colored and decorated Easter eggs. The art of pisanki is cultivated in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and many other East and Central European countries. The name pisanki comes from the word "pisac" means "to write" or "to print". Easter eggs are in Polish called jajka wielkanocne."

"It's our Polish tradition to go to church on Holy Saturday before Easter to bless the Easter basket called "święconka" in Polish."

"On Easter Monday we celebrate "Śmigus Dyngus". Traditionally, boys only boys would throw water on girls, however, nowadays boys and girls throw containers of water over each other. It is said that a girl who is not wet will be a spinster."

Reception joined an event on E-twinning to look at signs of Spring around the world. Scroll left and right, up and down on the padlet or use the link below to see all of the countries that took part. Can you find our pictures from Gipsey Bridge?

A Cultural Day at Barnes Wallis focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals

Reception's Easter parcel from Poland

Connecting Classrooms

The British Council, with the Department for International Development (DFID), has a global education programme called Connecting Classrooms. It enables teachers to work with like-minded teachers internationally to develop children's knowledge, skills and values.

As part of this project we have a link school in Lebanon, Jarouah Public School. It is a mixed middle school with 350 pupils. We plan to learn about the similarities and differences between the way we live and go to school, in addition to completing a project together so that we can also compare our ideas and learn from one another.

The PTFA held a breakfast from Europe...

Where is Lebanon?

Finding out about Lebanon

Reception say hello

Making Christmas Cards to send to Finland, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Greece and Lebanon

Christmas cards received from across Europe

We made a film to share with other schools overseas

Great British culture in a box

Lebanese culture in a box

Getting ready to skype and play culture in a box...

Skyping Lebanon for the first time - we were very excited!

Skyping Lebanon to play Culture in a Box

Our trip to Jordan

During February half term we were given the wonderful opportunity to visit Jordan where we were able to meet the teacher from our link school to plan our project and visit a school in the area in addition to attending the Connecting Classrooms Inclusion Conference. It was a week of learning and experiencing what education looks like in the Middle East.

Meeting Randa from our link school

Visiting a school in Jordan

Amman in Jordan

Twinkle twinkle little star ⭐️

To look at our shared learning with our link school in Lebanon, please visit the Class Three page; we have lots of exciting learning to share!

Our Indian Cultural Day which was held at Skegness Embassy with 8 schools and 270 children!

Our thoughts about working with a school in Lebanon

Year Five

What have you enjoyed most about our work with our link school in Lebanon? What did you like best?

I enjoyed looking at what their uniform and school looked like.

I like skyping Lebanon the best and making the video.

Trying out their languages and making a video.

I have enjoyed learning Arabic. The best bit was when we skyped them.

I have enjoyed getting to learn Arabic with the children. My favourite part was skyping them and learning about their culture.

I have enjoyed skyping Lebanon and I enjoyed culture in a box.

I enjoyed answering their question and seeing their answers from our questions.

I really enjoy working with Lebanon. I have enjoyed skyping the most and finding out their answers to our questions.

I liked socialising with all the different kids, I also enjoyed learning about what their country I like compared to ours.

Skyping the Lebanon school and telling them about our country.

I enjoyed it because I learnt about their culture.

What new ideas or information have you learned from working with pupils from Lebanon?

That they don’t go to school on a Friday.

I have learnt their morning routine, they don’t wear uniform.

Different times to go to school.

Different time zone and they go to school on different days.

I have learnt that their weekend is split (Friday and Sunday). Their time period is two hours ahead of ours.

They go to school for five days on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

They’re in a different time zone and different days at school.

I have seen how they do things and what they do in their school time.

I learnt that they speak in a different language and they have a different school to ours.

They do to school on different days to us.

They don’t go to school on Friday.

Year Six

What have you enjoyed most about our work with our link school in Lebanon? What did you like best?

What I like about working with Lebanon is that we learnt how our life is different compared to theirs.

Skyping to see how their food and religion is different.

I like acting out how we get ready for school and skyping them.

What they have in their school and what they live like.

Meeting other people and making friends with them. I liked skyping Lebanon.

I liked skyping them and seeing they have in their country.

I like skyping them and sharing information about our culture.

I have enjoyed learning about another school in a different country and seeing how their school I different, like going to school on different days to us.

Learning their language and learning their videos/songs. Making the videos of what we thought they do in the morning/drawing it.

Drawing pictures of what we think their classroom looks like.

I like making films because it is really fun to see how they are in other countries.

I like when we skyped and when Mrs Cockram showed us a video of their song and we learnt it.

What new ideas or information have you learned from working with pupils from Lebanon?

I have learnt that they go to school on different days.

They’re two hours ahead of us and they have different school days.

They eat in class, have different lessons and don’t have a register.

Their lifestyle, they’re two hours ahead of us and their school is different.

I learnt that they are two hours ahead and they go to school on different days to us.

I have learnt that they don’t have everything we have in England and they are two hours ahead.

They have a different time zone, they go to school at different times, their culture is very different to ours and so is their school.

I have learnt lots about Lebanon and its differences to England.

They go to school on different days and are two hours ahead.

How different their displays are and how they don’t go to school on Friday. Instead, they go on a Saturday.

I have learnt they do to school on different day and they are two hours in front.

That they speak Arabic and they don’t go to school on Friday.

Letters that the children wrote in response to the film that the children in Lebanon created.

When we visited Kidzania we spotted Rights of the child. Rights Respecting School Award

In 2017/18 we are going to focus on festivals and the things that we celebrate in each school and in our homes.

We have started by creating a film about Harvest. This has been shared with our friends in Lebanon and once they have watched it, they will ask us some questions and we will receive information about a festival that they celebrate at this time of year.

To see out film please look on the GB TV page on the website or follow the link:

https://gipsey-bridge.primarysite.media/media/harvest

eTwinning Annual Conference held in Malta during half term - this provided us with the opportunity to network with teachers throughout Europe and create links that can be used in school.

We received our International School Award and held a celebration

Learning about festivals with Lebanon

We have sent a film, pictures and information about Harvest to Lebanon. Below are their questions and our answers:

What kinds of crops do you grow? We grow corn, broccoli, beetroot, vegetables and wheat.

How is Halloween related to harvest? It is not directly related to harvest, but we do decorate pumpkins for Halloween.

Do all English people donate? Not all English people donate because some people are not as generous or thoughtful as others. Plus some people do not have the money to donate.

Is the food bank related to the Government or is it a public one? It is a public one because whenever people want to donate they can and the food banks are run by charities. When people do not have enough food they can go to the food bank.

How exactly does the donation process happen? The people who work at the food bank stack up the food and when somebody goes there with their food voucher, they are given some food.

Do poor people go to the food bank and take what they need if there’s another way? Yes so that they have enough to eat and drink.

Is donation only related to harvest time? No, we can donate at any time of the year.

Do you only donate food? You can also donate soap and shampoo.

Do you do these donations as a must? It is not a must, but it would be nice to bring a donation.

10. What values do you learn from all this? You learn about how hard it is to live with no food. You also learn about why they go to food banks. It teaches us to be kind, helpful, thoughtful and caring.

Lebanon have sent us photos about harvesting and making olive oil

Information about harvesting and making olive oil from Lebanon

Our questions for pupils in Lebanon:

Is olive oil expensive in Lebanon?

Do those who grow olive trees make a lot of money?

Do all of the trees grow in a large field next to each other?

Is there a certain time of the year that olive trees are harvested?

Do you harvest the trees every year?

Does it take long to go from harvest to olive oil?

Do you grow anything else?

Do you use lots of machinery for the harvest?

Answers from Lebanon:

Yes, it is expensive compared to other kinds of oils , for 1kg of olive oil costs about 13,ooo L.L or 9$

In fact no, people who grow olive pay a lot in picking and extracting oil .

No, some of them, some grow in house gardens, others in big fields, it depends

Usually olive trees are harvested in late September and October.

Yes , we do

The process starts from the field where all the harvest is collected in large bags to be directly pressed into oil .

Living by the Mediterranean has given us the privilege of growing so many other trees like : citrus trees ,apples, peaches(but these are seasonal )

We do not use lots of machinery for our harvest, we depend on workers thus making it very expensive and time consuming.

Sending Christmas cards to our eTwinning Celebrating Cultural Heritage partners. We are looking forward to working with them in the new year.

Christmas wishes from Lebanon

Learning about the Arabic language and being a refugee

Class 3 spent a day learning about Chinese culture, dance and exercise. Students from Giles filmed the day and we will gather with the other schools involved to watch them on the big screen at The Kinema in the Woods.

We voted on our favourite choices from Poland as part of our Cultural Heritage Project with eTwinning.

What we discovered when voting on the Poland page:

I found it interesting that Polish people have a tradition called Fat Thursday.

Polish people have different traditions but also some that we recognise such as Easter and Christmas.

They celebrate a Santa Claus day!

They celebrate Children’s Day where children are given gifts and there is no homework! This would be a great reason to move to Poland!

They celebrate Christmas in the same way that we do.

They have lots of different and interesting places in Poland.

We found their sayings interesting but we did not fully understand them all!

Our answers

At Christmas they at different food to us – they eat fish or mushroom soup and wraps.

At Easter they do face painting.

St Nicolas is the visiting of Santa and the reminding children of Jesus.

Masopust means carnival.

They celebrate the burning of witches on the 30th April – the ashes have magical powers. It is chasing away of evil spirits.

Sayings

Lež má krátké nohy, daleko nedojde. Was the favourite because it persuades you to tell the truth and not lie.

They have very similar sayings to us.

Buildings

We didn’t feel that Telc was as glamorous as the other choices.

The old town hall was built in 1338 which was a very long time ago!

Artists

There were lots of classical choices whereas we chose some modern artists too.

Chinese Cultural Experience 2018

Following on from the success of the Indian Cultural Day in 2017, the children in the local area were again incredibly fortunate to have another exciting experience funded by the Johnson and Mukherjee Brothers Trust. The Chinese Cultural Day has involved eight schools, including a Special School and a Secondary School and approximately 180 children.

The intention was that children would again learn about a different culture through movement. Lishi, a company that specialises in traditional Chinese dance, visited each school to spend the day teaching pupils about the Chinese culture through dance and exercise. Three pupils from Giles Academy and Simon, their teacher, spent the day filming each experience. The films are being showcased today at the Kinema in the Woods.

After today, each school will receive a copy of each of the Lishi days in order that they can be used for future PE lessons in their schools. Pupils have gained an insight into the Chinese culture and learnt a new dance and exercises. It is important that our children learn about other cultures in order that they can successfully deal with the fast changing globalised world that we now live in. Such experiences as the Chinese Cultural Experience, generously funded by the Johnson and Mukherjee Brothers Trust, become an important part of this education.

Many thanks to the Mukherjee and Johnson Brothers Trust, Lishi and Giles Academy for their hard work and a huge well done to all of the children.